CHAPTER 24, Inc., MADISON, WI
Monthly eNews December 2022

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Happy Holidays

It's our Annual Holiday Dinner
Wednesday, December 14th

After a couple of pandemic years off we'll get together to toast the season and enjoy our annual Holiday Dinner. Unfortunately due to a fire at the Maple Tree we need to change venues. We will dine at the Green Lantern in McFarland this year. Please RSVP so that we reserve enough seats. If you haven't already done so, please email Matt Mommaerts that you are coming and if you'll have a plus one.

Happy Hour 5:30 - 6:30pm
Dinner at 6:30 PM (Dutch Treat)
The Green Lantern
4412 Siggelkow Rd
McFarland, WI


Visitors and guests are welcome!




Jim Wulliman
Aug 10, 1924 - Nov 8, 2022

Long time Milwaukee broadcast engineer and former President of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), James Wulliman, passed away on November 8th at the age of 98 in Arizona. He spent much of his career in Milwaukee where he was responsible for the design and construction of Milwaukee's public television stations, WMVS-TV and WMVT-TV and served as their chief engineer and assistant director of operations. For the last 20 years of his career he was Director of Engineering for the Journal Broadcast Group including WTMJ-AM, WKTI-FM and WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. He served Milwaukee Chapter 28 of the SBE as its first Chapter Chair and went on to become the President of the national SBE from 1973 thru 1975. He became known as the father of the SBE Certification Program and has the SBE's annual Education Award named after him. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1998.

Complete Obituary

Our Chapter 12 Years Ago

Last Meeting Minutes
Submitted by Mike Travis, Secretary

The SBE Chapter 24 meeting was called to order by Matt Mommaerts at 07:01pm on November 17th, 2022 via Microsoft Teams.

Approval of Minutes
Leonard Charles made a motion to approve the secretary meeting minutes from 10/12/2022, seconded by Russ Awe and approved as submitted.

Treasurer's Report
Mike Norton reports the most recent deposit to the Chapter 24 checking account was from John Salzwedel/Token Creek Mobile Television. There were no expenditures in October/November. The Chapter checking account balance is [in the black].

Chapter Newsletter Report
Leonard Charles reports the deadline for articles for the December eNews letter is Wednesday November 30th at 5pm. Please forward any article of interest to Chapter members to Lcharles@sbe.org. If you send an article expect a reply of acknowledgement within a day or so. If you don't get one you should follow up to make sure your article was received.

SBE National Report
Leonard Charles reports the next session of SBE strategic planning begins with an online survey of its membership. The actual planning meeting will likely be virtual later. You are invited to become part of the process by taking the Strategic Planning survey now. There's a pop up link at the SBE home page.

The SBE is also conducting the SBE Disability Survey with the goal to help those members connect with opportunities or to help those who were forced to leave employment due to challenges. There's a pop up link to the survey on SBE home page.

The SBE Board of Directors approved a new chapter application at its meeting on Sept. 28. The new chapter is 148 Eastern Europe. Ten engineers in the Republic of Georgia have become SBE members to form the new Chapter to serve engineers in the countries of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

If you missed this year's SBE Membership Meeting and want an update of what the national is doing plus view the swearing in of its new officers, the meeting is posted online for replay at the SBE YouTube Channel.

Membership Report
Leonard Charles reports we have 44 members assigned to Chapter 24.

Sustaining Member Chair Report
Mike Travis reports there was a check received from John Salzwedel for Token Creek Productions. John sold his company to Rush Media and will no longer be a sustaining member. We are now at 9 sustaining members.

Program Committee Report
Matt Mommaerts reports we have programs lined up for January and February 2023.

Certification and Education Report
Jim Hermanson was unavailable but Matt Mommaerts reports the next exam session is February 3rd - 13th, 2023. The deadline to apply is January 6th, 2023.

Frequency Coordination Report
We have sad news to report. Thomas Smith passed away on Saturday, October 22nd. Tom was dedicated to the chapter and Wisconsin Broadcasters Clinic. Matt Mommaerts did not have anything to report for frequency coordination.

General Announcements
Leonard Charles is stepping down from the chapter. Leonard's chapter duties are being assigned to current chapter personnel. Thank you Chuck for your years of dedicated service to the chapter!

Adjournment
Leonard Charles made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Russ Awe. Meeting adjourned at 7:12pm.

Presentation
The meeting was followed by a presentation on "The Changing Face of Audio Processing" by Angry Audio. Thank you Michael Dosch, Cornelius Gould and Michael Uhl!

Job Openings

Woodward Radio Group CE
WMTV TV, Broadcast Engineer
WKOW PT MC Operator

Chapter 24 eNews Needs You

Chapter 24 is seeking an eNews Letter editor. As editor you will be able to take the publication in any direction you desire subject to content inclusions defined in the Chapter ByLaws as a minimum. If you are interested please contact Chapter Chair Matt Mommaerts (mmommaerts@sbgtv.com).

Be the FCC News Author

The monthly publication of the Chapter 24 eNews letter is looking for a FCC News author. If you regularly follow the movements of the FCC particularly as they relate to Wisconsin Broadcasters, or if you are interested in doing so, please consider sharing your knowledge with the members of the Chapter by writing the FCC News column each month. If you are interested or have questions please contact Lcharles@sbe.org.

Program Ideas Appreciated

The Chapter 24 2023 meeting schedule is available here. If you have any suggestions for program topics you'd like to see, or if there is a topic that you'd like to present at an upcoming meeting, please contact Matt Mommaerts or one of the Chapter 24 officers .

Amateur Radio News
Compiled by Tom Weeden, WJ9H

SKYWARN Recognition Day Set for December 3, 2022
The annual SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) on-the-air activity will take place Saturday, December 3, 2022, from 0000 to 2400 UTC. For US time zones, activity begins on the evening of Friday, December 2, 2022. SKYWARN Recognition Day was developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service (NWS) and ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio, to honor the contributions that SKYWARN volunteers make to the NWS mission -- the protection of life and property during threatening weather. During the SKYWARN special event, hams will operate from several NWS offices, as well as from their mobile, home, and club stations. "The relationship between amateur radio operators and the NWS is extremely important for relaying information during storms of any type," said ARRL Director of Emergency Management Josh Johnston, KE5MHV. "SKYWARN is a perfect example of the value of hams working together with government partners during times of disaster."

Amateur Radio to the Moon
The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, AMSAT, reports that an amateur radio payload was aboard NASA's Artemis 1 mission to the moon, which launched November 16th. Project OMOTENASHI, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is a "CubeSat" consisting of an orbiting module, surface probe, and solid rocket motor. The 700-gram surface probe was meant to land on the moon and transmit a beacon in the amateur 70 cm UHF band. Controllers reported that after separation from Artemis, OMOTENASHI was tumbling, making it difficult for the spacecraft to charge its batteries and communicate with the ground. On November 17th, team leader Hashimoto Tatsuaki said telemetry from the CubeSat was unstable, but they determined that its solar cells were facing away from the sun. They attempted to stop the spin with the onboard engine but were unable to direct the solar cells toward the sun before batteries discharged. The team believes if they were successful in stopping the spacecraft's spin, by March of 2023 the solar cells will face the sun again, repowering the CubeSat. While the opportunity to land on the moon was lost, amateurs wanting to continue listening for the orbiting module can monitor 437.31 MHz for the 1 watt PSK31 beacon.


Graphic courtesy: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA

(Excerpts from the American Radio Relay League's arrl.org and AMSAT's amsat.org web sites)

EAS Update
by Gary Timm
Wisconsin SECC Broadcast Chair

The FCC recently took two actions related to EAS. The first will require little work from you, the second would require significant work from you.

Report & Order FCC 22-75
First, last week the FCC set Compliance Dates for some new EAS rules. By December 12, 2023, a little over a year from now: - When your EAS unit receives a Legacy EAS alert over the air, it must poll the IPAWS server for at least 10 seconds to look for a duplicate of that alert in CAP format, and if found, the IPAWS alert must be used on the air. FCC calls this CAP Prioritization.
- Certain EAS Event Codes and an Originator Code must be presented in TV crawls and any radio/TV text-to-speech audio with slightly different language than is currently used. The good news is that both of these changes will be made by your EAS unit manufacturer in a future software update. So your only responsibility here is to download and install that software update into your EAS unit when it is released by your EAS unit's manufacturer.

For Cable TV EAS Participants, you have until March 12, 2024 (15 months) to affect these changes in set-top boxes that require software upgrades, and any set-top boxes that must instead be replaced you have until December 12, 2028 (6 years).

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) FCC 22-82
This second FCC action, a set of proposed EAS rules, would if adopted involve annual time and effort on your part regarding EAS cybersecurity. The FCC found in the results from the 2021 EAS Nationwide Test that over 500 EAS units were out for repair or inoperative, and found that over 5,000 EAS units were running outdated software or the units themselves were outdated and unable to be updated. The FCC thus felt compelled to propose these new EAS rules.

The Commission proposes that rather than the current 60 days to repair EAS equipment without notice to the FCC, that it be repaired "with prompt and reasonable diligence".

The Commission proposes to require EAS Participants to report any unauthorized access to EAS equipment within 72 hours of when it knew or should have known that an incident had occurred. This would apply to not only the EAS equipment itself, but all of the EAS Participant's "communications systems or services" that could affect broadcasting an EAS alert.

The Commission proposes to require EAS Participants to submit an annual certification attesting that they have created, updated, and implemented a cybersecurity risk management plan. The plan would not get filed with the FCC, but must be made available for inspection upon request - so it must be a written, detailed plan, which the FCC estimates will take 10 hours annually to draft and update. The Commission cites several documents from federal agencies NIST and CISA to follow as examples of what it expects to see in the plan.

While the first two proposals are suggested to take effect 30-60 days after the rules become final, the FCC proposes that the cybersecurity plan would not be required until 1 year after the Compliance Date for the rules has been set. Right now these are just proposed rules, so compliance is a long way down the road.

UPDATE - Comment Period Open Now
I had expected the Comment Period to begin in mid-December, the typical lag after an NPRM is released. However, the Commission has apparently put this NPRM on the fast track, publishing it in the Federal Register on November 23, 2022, less than a month after it was released - much sooner than is typical for an NPRM. Thus, the 30-day Comment Period has now started and will run through the Holiday season, with Comments due on December 23, 2022.

You should formulate any Comments you wish to make ASAP. There is no set format for Comments filed with the Commission. Simply identify the FCC proposal you are replying to and state your opinion. This can be in a Word or PDF document. Then to file your Comments, go to www.fcc.gov/ecfs, click on "Submit a Filing", in the Proceedings field type "15-94" (it will auto-fill with reference to EAS), Type of Filing is "Comment", fill in your personal info, then click to attach your Comment document.

After December 23, 2022, you can return to the FCC ECFS website and read the Comments of others. If you wish to reply to anyone else's Comment, you can file a Reply Comment. The deadline for that is January 23, 2023.

Gary's summary of NPRM FCC 22-82 on Cybersecurity

FM Directional Antenna

On May 19, 2022, the Commission released the FM Broadcast Directional Antenna Performance Verification Order in which the Commission revised its broadcast radio procedures and rules to allow for FM and LPFM directional antenna pattern verification by computer modeling performed by the directional antenna's manufacturer. By Public Notice the Media Bureau announces the effective date is November 10, 2022 coinciding with Order's publication in the Federal Register on that day.

FM Digital Power Rules

The FCC has issued a Public Notice seeking comment on the Petition for Rulemaking filed by the National Association of Broadcasters and Xperi, Inc. on October 26, 2022. The Petitioners request an updated formula to determine and increase FM digital sideband power levels for stations transmitting digital FM. Petitioners also request to be combined with the rulemaking proceeding initiated by the Petitioners and National Public Radio, Inc. on December 9, 2019, seeking blanket authorization to originate digital transmissions at different power levels on the upper and lower digital sidebands (asymmetric sidebands) without having to request experimental authorization. Petitioners contend that the proposed changes will serve the public interest by improving digital FM signal quality and coverage while minimizing harmful interference to adjacent-channel stations.

The Media Bureau grants the Petitioners' request to combine the Petitions into one rulemaking proceeding, which is assigned MB Docket Number 22-405. The comment period has been set from January 12, 2023 to February 13, 2023.

SBE Mentor Program Adds Subject Matter Experts

As the SBE Mentor Program has grown, the need for mentors has increased. The evolution of the Mentor program has identified the additional need for a level of specific subject expertise. To answer that need the SBE Mentor program introduces a new level of mentorship: The Subject Matter Expert (SME). SMEs offer knowledge in a specific area of expertise and can offer specific knowledge that may be outside the primary Mentor's experience.

Like primary Mentors, SMEs must be current SBE members and in the profession of broadcast engineering. They must have a willingness to share their knowledge and a positive attitude toward help with the professional development of others. For more information click here.

DoD, Broadcasters Agree on Spectrum Sharing

The NAB and SBE announced a joint memorandum of understanding with the Department of Defense to allow non-exclusive access to commercial spectrum at 2025-2110 MHz at 26 U.S. military sites. Following nearly seven years of technical study, and laboratory and field testing, an agreement has been reached that will ensure the coexistence of newsgathering and other broadcast operations with critical military training missions. The spectrum was identified for potential sharing in advance of a spectrum auction that the FCC conducted in 2014 that raised more than $44 billion by converting Federal spectrum to flexible commercial use. The joint agreement demonstrates the commitment of broadcasters and DoD to advance both the nation's economic prosperity and national security interests, while maintaining public access to critical news and information provided by broadcasters. For more information click here.

Certification and Education
compiled by Jim Hermanson

The Open 2023 Exam Schedule
Exam Dates Location Application Deadline
(to SBE National Office)

  February 3-13, 2023
  Local Chapters (Madison Area)
  January 6, 2023

  June 1-12, 2023
  Local Chapters (Madison Area)
  April 21, 2023

  August 4-14, 2023
  Local Chapters (Madison Area)
  June 16, 2023

  November 3-13, 2023
  Local Chapters (Madison Area)
  September 8, 2023


When you are ready to take an SBE exam, note the open exam schedule, complete the appropriate application (found here... http://www.sbe.org/applications) and send it directly to the SBE National office (see address below) with the respective fee. You will be notified once your application is approved. Before the exam time, your local certification chairman will receive a list of applicants and exams in his/her area and arrange for a proctor. He/she will then contact applicants to schedule a mutually agreeable date, time, and place for the exam(s) within the respective exam date window. This must be coordinated before the exam will be sent by SBE National. Completed exam(s) will be mailed back to SBE National for grading. Pass/fail results will be mailed directly to the applicants.

The majority of SBE certifications are open book and access to the Internet is allowed to give a more "real world" situation.

You may mail, email, or fax your applications to:
Megan E. Clappe
Certification Director
9102 N. Meridian St.
Suite 150
Indianapolis, IN 46260
317-846-9120 Fax
mclappe@sbe.org

To apply for a specialist certification, an individual must currently hold certification on the Broadcast Engineer, Senior Broadcast Engineer, Professional Broadcast Engineer or Broadcast Networking Engineer Certification level. Exams must be completed within three hours and consist of 50 multiple-choice questions (two points each) and one essay question (20 points maximum). Examinees are provided one essay question to answer. Exams are pass/fail, and a score of 84 is a passing grade.


December Webinar


Cybersecurity 2023 - FREE SBE Webinar

Tuesday, December 20, 2022 | 1 p.m. CT

Cybersecurity continues to be a top-of-mind concern for the broadcast IT engineer. The continuous cat-and-mouse game between the cybercriminal and those responsible for providing reliable and secure broadcast IT systems never ends. Threats evolve over time and threat precautions must also evolve.

This webinar will look back at significant cybersecurity events occurring during the last year and look at the root cause of a successful threat. A crystal ball look ahead at what 2023 might bring will be attempted with a focus on outlining key cybersecurity threat mitigation steps for the broadcast IT engineer to implement or insure they are implemented such as potential requirements of the anticipated FCC EAS Cybersecurity regulation enactment.

Your Instructor

Wayne Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, ATSC3, DRB, CBNE

Wayne M. Pecena is the associate director of educational broadcast services at Texas A&M University. Wayne has more than 48 years of broadcast and IP network engineering experience and holds BS and MS degrees from Texas A&M University. Wayne is a Fellow of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) and holds the Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer (CPBE) and Certified Broadcast Network Engineer (CBNE) certifications from the SBE. He served as the national President of the SBE from 2019 to 2021. He was named the 2012 SBE Educator of the Year, the 2014 Radio World Engineer of the year, and named an IEEE-BTS Distinguished Lecturer in 2018. He is a frequent industry speaker on IP Networking and cybersecurity topics for the broadcast and media technology professional.

SBE Recertification Credit
The completion of a webinar from Webinars by SBE qualifies for 1 credit, identified under Category I of the Recertification Schedule for SBE Certifications.

Registration and Pricing
This webinar will be approximately 60 minutes long.

THIS WEBINAR IS FREE

SBE Members: FREE
MemberPlus Members FREE
Non-Members: FREE
Registration Link

Questions?
If you have questions regarding this course, contact Cathy Orosz via email or by phone at 317-846-9000.


More information about registering using the SBE MemberPlus benefit
All SBE webinars are included at no additional cost for members who renew or join using the $175 SBE MemberPlus membership option. You get all the live and archived Webinars by SBE in the SBE catalog plus any new webinars the SBE adds during the membership year, all for no extra cost. Members can renew and newcomers may join online at the SBE website using the SBE MemberPlus option.

Access to the SBE webinars through the SBE MemberPlus program is limited to the MemberPlus-purchaser only. You are not permitted to distribute, sell, copy, share, project or otherwise make the webinars available to any other individual or group without express written permission by the SBE.


Take Advantage of SBE's Comprehensive Archive of Webinars
Did you know that the SBE offers more than 140 archived webinars on technical, regulatory and management topics? Go to On-Demand Webinars - The Society of Broadcast Engineers (sbe.org) to see what is available to you. Is there a topic that is missing from our archives that you would like to see? Contact Education Director Cathy Orosz at corosz@sbe.org with your requests!


Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), its officers, or its members. SBE Chapter 24, Inc. regrets, but is not liable for, any omissions or errors. Articles of interest to Chapter 24 members are accepted up to the close of business the 1st day of each month. Send your article to lcharles@sbe.org.